As Homeland Security dollars dry up, is Massachusetts safer?

David Riley

Friday

Aug 26, 2011 at 12:01 AMAug 26, 2011 at 5:29 AM

Massachusetts has spent hundreds of millions of federal Homeland Security dollars on everything from communication upgrades to disaster training since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but that money is dwindling.

Editor's note: Embargoed until week that begins Sept. 5 (the week leading up to Sept. 11).

Massachusetts has spent hundreds of millions of federal Homeland Security dollars on everything from communication upgrades to disaster training since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but that money is dwindling.

The Homeland Security Grant Program, the main federal funding source for local and regional disaster planning, peaked for the Bay State in the 2005 federal budget at $55.8 million, according to the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

Funding has dropped steadily since then, with the state expecting $27.8 million this year, the public safety office said – less than half the 2005 level.

Altogether, Massachusetts has received or is lined up to get more than $350 million in Homeland Security grants since the terrorist attacks. State and regional public safety leaders said the money has gone a long way toward making Bay State towns and cities safer than a decade ago, strengthening disaster plans, improving emergency responder radio systems and better equipping police and firefighters.

“We are better able to prevent terrorism, and better able to respond to, recover from and mitigate the consequences of any type of incident or disaster,” Mary Elizabeth Heffernan, state secretary for Public Safety and Security, said in a written statement. “This is about building capabilities and preparing for the worst-case scenarios.”

In Worcester County, work continues to upgrade emergency radio systems. In a recent Homeland Security plan, officials on the South Shore and Cape said some towns and cities still need more equipment, ranging from emergency generators to vehicles equipped to deal with hazardous materials. Emergency officials west and north of Boston recently began a new emergency planning project with local hospitals.

“Everybody’s got a need and everybody can testify to the expenditures, but I think the pie is getting smaller,” said Jim Machado, executive director of the Mass. Police Association.

The state has sought a more targeted approach to Homeland Security spending in recent years and will continue to focus its priorities, Heffernan said.

“Responding to natural disasters and being adequately prepared in times of emergency, including the threat of a terrorist attack, gets increasingly more difficult with fewer dollars,” she said.

The spending to date has not been without critics. Civil libertarians have questioned money used in some areas for expanded surveillance or information-gathering programs that they believe infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

“As the government is gathering more and more information about us … we know less and less about what they’re doing with that information, how it’s used, how it’s stored,” said Kade Crockford, privacy rights coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

Costs of War, a recent study by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, argued that the rapid expansion of Homeland Security spending nationwide after Sept. 11 sometimes led to waste, particularly in the early days. The report also said old-fashioned policing has more often foiled terrorist plots than expensive technology.

“I think the problem was that a lot of money was spent on addressing low priority, low-risk events,” said Anita Dancs, an assistant economics professor at Western New England University who authored the Homeland Security part of the Brown study.

Evolving priorities

Prompted by sometimes flawed planning and communication weaknesses seen in the response to the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal government began funneling security grants to states in 2003.

To manage the money, the state is divided into five homeland security regions. Most are led by a council of area police, fire, health, public works and other officials who draw up annual plans for equipment, training and planning at the regional and local levels.

A 2008 state Homeland Security report said federal funding is shifting away from general regional grants and toward more specific concerns, such as port security and transportation.

As a result, the state said it has focused grants on preparing to deal with chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive devices; mass evacuation and sheltering; protecting key infrastructure; better information sharing and communication; and training.

Until 2008, the state and regions spent grant money on at least twice as many priority areas, sometimes spreading resources too thin, the state report said. The regions must abide by the state’s overarching Homeland Security strategy.

“Now they’re trying to focus it more, direct it so that it goes really to areas that promote regionalization,” said Wayne Sampson, executive director of the Mass. Chiefs of Police Association.

Council representatives stress their preparations are for disasters both man-made and natural, whether terrorism or a tornado.

Northeastern Mass.

The Northeast Homeland Security Planning Region covers 85 cities and towns, stretching from Amesbury on the state’s northeast border with New Hampshire to Framingham and Holliston to the southwest.

Since 2004, the region has secured more than $30 million in Homeland Security grants, according to the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. The region’s funding dropped by half from $6.5 million in federal fiscal year 2004 to $3.3 million in 2010 and is slated to be cut by half once again this year, to $1.6 million.

The regional council has sought resources that towns and cities can share, such as caches in Boxford, Hudson and Saugus of protective and hazmat gear for emergency responders, said Amy Reilly, assistant homeland security manager for the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission.

“A lot of the first responders are on the scene before they even know what they’re getting themselves into,” said Steve White, homeland security manager for MAPC. “It’s basic protection for when there’s an unknown condition or an unknown chemical.”

The region has other emergency supplies cached in Beverly, Framingham and Lexington.

The council also has spent roughly $1.5 million on emergency equipment provided directly to cities and towns, said Reilly, whose organization is responsible for overseeing the council’s annual plans.

“The council wants to make sure that communities are able to stand alone … in case something happens and they can’t access regional resources right away,” she said.

While the region shelled out about $1.2 million for emergency shelter supplies such as cots and blankets in the 2004 budget year, it put much of its other early funding toward studying risks and needs, Reilly said.

That included assessing police and fire equipment needs and reviewing if emergency radio systems in the region can communicate with one another.

The latter has become a priority, with the region setting aside about $2.5 million from 2004-2008 to upgrade the Boston Area Police Emergency Radio Network. Work is still underway to transfer the BAPERN system to more reliable infrastructure, Reilly said, and the region has put more money toward upgrading other radio equipment.

Other highlights include:

- Reimbursing towns and cities more than $1.3 million for training on the National Incident Management System, which lays out guidelines for disaster response;

- About $585,000 to assess threats to local schools and provide floor plans to the schools and emergency responders. A similar project is under way for hospitals;

- Roughly $525,000 to map crime trends across the region;

- About $200,000 to train specialized rescue teams;

- Equipping the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council SWAT team with new helmets, shields and a hostage negotiation phone;

- About $149,000 for a bomb squad robot.

As money declines, the council will continue focusing on training and exercise plans for emergency responders, Reilly said.

Central Mass.

The Central Massachusetts Homeland Security Region represents more than 50 cities and towns in Worcester County, including several Milford-area communities, Westborough, Harvard, Clinton and Lancaster.

The region has secured upward of $20 million in Homeland Security grants since Sept. 11. Its share of funding through the State Homeland Security Program dipped from $4.4 million in federal fiscal year 2004 to an expected $1.3 million this year.

The region’s council has focused on supplying towns and cities with equipment that not only can be used in major emergencies, but can serve day-to-day purposes too, said Ed McNamara, the council’s chairman and executive director of Central Mass. EMS.

“It doesn’t do any good to purchase a piece of equipment and only pull it out of the garage once every 10 years and find out it doesn’t work,” McNamara said.

For example, the region has equipped towns with solar-powered public message boards that can be used not only to display road closures or the locations of emergency shelters, but everyday announcements, said Michael Dunne, who oversees the region’s plans at the Central Mass. Regional Planning Commission. Light towers and mobile Jersey barriers serve similar purposes.

The council also has set up 10 trailers in each of the county’s cities and several towns, including Milford, and stocked them with cots, blankets, wheelchairs and other equipment for emergency shelters, Dunne said.

The region also has invested millions of dollars in new radio infrastructure and equipment for emergency responders to ensure they can communicate with each other reliably.

However, work is still under way to create a “command and control” radio network through which leaders of agencies across the region can communicate, with hopes of having it up and running in three to four years, McNamara said. The region is a rarity in lacking this ability, he said.

“It takes time,” McNamara said. “You need to get all the (local) systems up and operating and modernized by themselves prior to linking them all together. We’re getting very close.”

While the region is largely well equipped, the council is now looking at how to expand mass sheltering capacity and purchasing emergency generators, McNamara said. The region has appreciated state and federal support and hopes it will continue, he said.

- Software allowing police to share data and trends across town boundaries;

- Training local emergency responders on the National Incident Management System, which lays out procedures for responding to a major emergency;

- Working with the Worcester Regional Transit Authority to equip a retired city bus as an “ambu-bus” to transport groups of people who are injured or have medical needs;

- Working with Red Cross to establish a mobile canteen to serve meals in emergencies, used after the recent tornadoes in western Mass.

Southeastern Mass.

The Southeast Homeland Security Region covers more than 90 towns and cities stretching from Wellesley and Bellingham in the west to the South Shore, Cape and islands.

The region has secured roughly $30 million since Homeland Security grants first became available, the state Public Safety and Security office said. Funding peaked the first year at about $7.8 million and is slated to drop to about $1.4 million this year, the office said.

The regional council in its first plan to the state in 2004 outlined risks to the region, noting that a number of small rural towns in the area have limited resources for dealing with major emergencies.

The council found that emergency responders in some towns, such as Easton and Rehoboth, had radio systems that were unable to communicate with some neighboring communities, said Mattapoisett Police Chief Mary Lyons, chairwoman of the Southeast council.

“If you can’t talk to your neighbors, it’s a problem," she said. "If the only method to talk to them is on the phone and you’re at a major scene, that's not going to work."

Getting emergency responders and other agencies able to work together and communicate with each other was a major priority in the council's first plan, which set aside roughly $2 million for this purpose.

The council’s latest plan for federal fiscal year 2010 cited progress on these fronts, including a regionwide training and exercise plan in the works and more than $10 million spent on interoperability projects. But the report said work is still ongoing to improve communication systems.

Lyons said part of the work includes setting up more reliable radio towers and upgrading to modern infrastructure.

The council cited progress on other fronts: equipping towns and cities with solar-powered message boards and portable lighting systems, setting up new specialized rescue teams in Norfolk and Bristol counties, placing 11 trailers that contain foam used for firefighting throughout the region and reimbursing municipalities for training programs, among other things.

Law enforcement councils in the region also are setting up computer systems allowing them to more easily share information, Lyons said.

Other highlights of the council’s 2010 plan include:

- $250,000 for a multi-county training exercise for specialized rescue teams, as well as $300,000 for emergency exercises at the region’s hospitals;

- $325,000 for an additional armored vehicle for responding to incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive devices. The council previously bought such a vehicle for the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council and said they also are needed on the Cape and in the lower southeastern part of the region;

- $230,000 for further hazmat training;

- More than $300,000 for further communication interoperability work;

- $100,000 for ballistic shields and hazmat suits for the region’s law enforcement councils.

Metro Boston region

The Metro Boston Homeland Security Region covers the cities of Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Quincy, Revere and Somerville, and the towns of Brookline and Winthrop.

It is funded through the Urban Areas Security Initiative, a stream of the Homeland Security Grant Program for major metropolitan areas that is separate from the money the state's other regions receive. It delivers more funding to Metro Boston than any other region of the state - more than $120 million since Sept. 11, according to state officials.

Still, it has seen funding decline as well. According to the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, Metro Boston's funding dipped from roughly $25 million in federal fiscal year 2004 to $11.7 million in 2009. Funding climbed to $15.1 million last year.

A representative for the region could not be reached for comment. However, newsletters from the Boston Office of Emergency Management describe a number of the region’s recent projects:

- Urban Shield, a $1 million regionwide training exercise earlier this year for hundreds of rescue workers throughout Greater Boston;

- Web software to allow emergency responders throughout the region to communicate more effectively;

- The Boston Regional Intelligence Center, set up to gather, analyze and share information on potential threats throughout the region;

- Training for medical personnel on managing a disaster leading to mass injuries or deaths.

Metro Boston planning documents for federal fiscal year 2010, provided by the ACLU of Massachusetts, also describe plans to continue training emergency responders in the National Incident Management System, a set of guidelines for responding to a major disaster, and development of a regional emergency operations center.

Other goals included continued funding for increased security at critical infrastructure sites; additional support and technology for the Boston Regional Intelligence Center; more material for hazmat response; and continued work to improve communications, including in subway tunnels.

The region also has funded surveillance camera systems in public areas, proving controversial in Brookline and Somerville in 2009 and met with opposition by the Cambridge City Council the same year.

Civil libertarians are concerned about technology and strategies that monitor much of the public, rather than focusing on people who police have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to watch, said Crockford, of the ACLU of Massachusetts.

“The big picture concern is there’s been a degradation in standards for investigations and intelligence gathering,” she said.

Looking forward

At the Mass. Chiefs of Police Association, Sampson said the decline in Homeland Security money comes amid a wider drop-off of federal support for emergency responders.

“Most of those grants are going away or are drastically reduced,” he said.

That could make it difficult to keep up with maintenance or routine upgrades of equipment purchased through the grants, said Machado, of the Mass. Police Association.

“It puts a little bit more of an onus on municipalities to backfill some of that,” he said.

However, at the Central Mass. Regional Planning Commission, Dunne said the federal grants limit how much regional councils can offer for routine maintenance.

"The idea is basically once we turn the equipment over to the community, it basically bcomes their responsibility," he said.

While some Homeland Security regions expressed worry, others said the dip in funding has come as communities have narrowed their focus for security projects anyway. Lyons, chairwoman of the Southeast council, said realistically, there is never enough money to meet every need.

"We’ve been focusing on immediate needs," Lyons said. “We’ve been very conscious of the money we have.”

“I don’t think it’s going to affect the region that much,” Dunne said of the Central Mass. area. “We’ve already accomplished a lot of things.”

(David Riley can be reached at 508-626-3919 or driley@wickedlocal.com.)

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